The two of them arrived together at a quiet reception room in the academy.
After sitting down, Augusta didn't beat around the bush and got straight to the point:
"My family recently discovered a new plane."
Upon hearing this, Jie Ming's expression shifted slightly.
For any wizard family, a new plane meant an enormous and tempting bounty.
Augusta continued, "Although we've only detected the plane's existence so far, haven't even calculated its precise spatial coordinates, let alone gathered detailed reconnaissance... barring any surprises, my family intends to send me to explore it."
Jie Ming nodded reflexively.
Given Augusta's combat power, the military strength of an ordinary plane's civilization truly couldn't cause her much trouble.
As for the "surprises" she mentioned, they were simply cases of finding Level 8 combat power within the plane.
But the possibility was too low; after all, the region where Noren Workshop was located counted as the heartland of the Wizard Civilization, and any plane found there would be a fish that had slipped through nets already trawled again and again.
The chance of such a plane having Level 8 combat power was extremely small.
"Then what do you intend by coming to me this time...?" Jie Ming had an inkling of Augusta's meaning.
Augusta nodded and said directly, "I'd like to hire you to help me deal with this plane."
At that, Augusta sighed softly, her tone carrying some resignation. "I'm not worried about the plane having any high-rank powerhouses; as long as they're below Level 8, I can handle them."
"But we both know that what truly makes conquering a plane troublesome is the enormous number of mid- and low-tier lifeforms in that world. Once war begins, they'll surge forth endlessly like a tide. And I... I'm only good at annihilation, not suppression."
"It seems your family's requirement for the plane is to preserve its native civilization as much as possible, right?" Jie Ming said, stroking his chin.
Augusta smiled wryly. "Yes, keep the plane and its civilization as intact as possible. The more intact it is, the more valuable it is. My family isn't as wealthy as you are."
Hearing this, Jie Ming understood her purpose.
What Augusta truly needed was not someone who could defeat the enemy's top experts, but an assistant who could efficiently suppress an entire civilization.
After all, as a combat-type wizard, all her combat power was concentrated in herself; she wasn't skilled at cultivating cannon-fodder creatures, and suppressing civilizations was indeed her weak point.
And this was precisely Jie Ming's forte.
Jie Ming's cannon-fodder unit war system had long since matured and could fully meet these requirements.
Augusta's gaze settled on Jie Ming.
"According to my family's calculations, there are still several decades before we officially launch the plane war. During this time, we'll complete the final war preparations. I hope you'll be able to join the battle as my support force."
"Of course, I'll do my best to satisfy you in terms of compensation. If there's anything you need, just name it."
Jie Ming pondered briefly, then nodded. "No problem. I can take part in this battle."
For other high-rank wizards, due to the mandatory rest period, every expedition was a fairly important opportunity to acquire resources. Given Jie Ming's current wealth, he couldn't care less about that "small change."
However, he was going to devote himself to long-term study anyway, so the mandatory rest period didn't affect him much. After all, over all these years, Jie Ming hadn't even taken the initiative to search for planes.
Of course, if this alien civilization had knowledge he was interested in, that would naturally be a good thing.
But the real reason Jie Ming was willing to agree was that the Talisman Imprint Rune Artifact was about to be completed.
Even if Augusta hadn't invited him, he had already planned to find a large-scale battle to test his research results.
After getting his answer, Augusta visibly relaxed, and her smile became much more at ease.
"Then it's settled."
After making the agreement with Augusta, a few years passed in the blink of an eye.
One day, Jie Ming stood before his workbench, gazing at two Talisman Imprint Rune Artifact substrates floating before him, having just received their final rune engravings, his face full of anticipation.
After all these years, he had finally completed the Level 6 sorcery he needed.
There were two types of Level 6 sorcery used for making Talisman Imprint Rune Artifacts.
The first was called the Terminus Ray. The core principle of this sorcery was to simulate the ultra-high-speed particle streams produced by a supernova explosion, compressing an immeasurable amount of energy into a ray no thicker than a finger, striking the target at nearly light speed.
Its destructive power was above average among Level 6 sorceries; a single ray was enough to shatter a standard-sized planet completely!
The second sorcery followed a completely different approach.
Jie Ming named it the Echo Shell.
Compared to the Terminus Ray, which sought a one-hit kill, the Echo Shell's initial destructive power was quite mediocre, even slightly inferior to an ordinary Level 6 energy shell.
If a single Echo Shell hit a planet, at most it would burn the entire planet into glass, unable to inflict any irreparable damage. But the reason the Echo Shell had such weak initial destructive power was that, in order to achieve its special ability, Jie Ming had deliberately slowed its explosiveness as much as possible. The special feature of the Echo Shell was that, after hitting a target, it would automatically attract ambient elemental remnants to gather on the target's surface.
These elements didn't take long to gather, and they had no special effects; under normal circumstances, they were indeed useless to the target. But if another Echo Shell struck the same target within the particle gathering window, the new shell would reactivate all the residual elements from before, triggering a secondary explosion.
Moreover, the newly landed Echo Shell itself would attract even more elements to gather.
In other words, the more times the same target was hit by Echo Shells, the denser the accumulated elements became, and the destructive power of each subsequent shell would climb exponentially.
Theoretically, as long as the same target was struck consecutively enough times, the Echo Shell could eventually reach destructive power approaching that of Level 7 sorcery!
Besides these two sorceries suited for Talisman Imprint Rune Artifacts, relying on the in-depth exchanges with masters of spatial studies like Savien at the previous Academic Symposium, as well as his own long-term comprehension of spatial knowledge, Jie Ming had also casually created a completely new spatial sorcery.
He named it "Void String."
The principle of this sorcery was to induce a brief fluctuation in the spatial string structure of the target's space, forming a resonant cutting plane finer than the atomic scale.
Any matter or energy passing through this plane would be torn apart directly at the particle level.
Ordinary spatial slashes utilized the shearing force when phase spaces overlapped and separated.
Although this attack method was extremely destructive, it was also quite impotent when facing enemies with too high an energy level.
For beings above Level 6, their own massive energy convergence rendered attacks of this level non-lethal. The Void String that Jie Ming created was specifically designed to target beings above Level 6.
Against low-tier beings, the Void String was actually not as convenient as ordinary spatial slashes.
After all, its lethal range was too short, its consumption was higher, and its cost-effectiveness was far inferior to spatial slashes.
But once placed within a spatial confinement environment, or when facing high-energy targets, the destructive power of this sorcery would multiply. Even an ordinary Level 6 wizard who raised a specialized spatial shield would be sliced directly open by the Void String.
This was because the essence of most spatial shields was, after all, still a spatial structure, and the Void String, during its creation, naturally attached itself to spatial structures.
Therefore, if a wizard used a spatial shield, Jie Ming could use the Void String to cause the opponent to be shredded by their own shield.
Even more interesting, the more stable the spatial confinement, the stronger the Void String's destructive power became.
The tighter the confinement field compressed the spatial structure, the sharper that resonant cutting plane was honed, creating a positive feedback loop between the two.
Taking the two Talisman Imprint Rune Artifacts inscribed with Terminus Ray and Echo Shell, Jie Ming could hardly wait to test them.